“This is crazy,” he said, his frustration clear in his voice. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. How are we supposed to find him? How are we supposed to do what no one else has been able to do?”

“We’ll figure it out. I just have to learn about the structure of their enterprise first. Vice’ll have surveillance equipment, but I won’t have access to it until after I switch departments.”

“I can get you surveillance equipment. State of the art. Far better than anything your police will have. And I know for a fact that our authoritarians are surveilling key places for Killean already. They are also following Draz as best they can. He is just as elusive as Killean. They are taking pages from each other’s books.”

“There. See? If we work together we can figure this out.”

“Renee, this isn’t a goddamn social club! It isn’t a game. It isn’t safe or fun or anything like it! It’s not exciting and interesting. It’s one thing and one thing only: deadly. And dangerous. If you did this you couldn’t be more unsafe.”

“Deadly and dangerous are two things,” she said cheekily, before growing serious. “You think I don’t know what I’m signing up for but you’re wrong. I know. We all know. All of us cops who go undercover…we all know. We know we’re risking our lives every single minute.”

Rafe reached out to snag her hand and yanked her forward until she slammed into the front of his body, the air ejecting from her lungs. He let his hand curve over her hip until he was grasping her backside. He pulled her hips into his own, rubbing himself against her.

“And what about sex?” he murmured against her ear. “These are sex traffickers and you are a very beautiful woman. They could easily decide to sell you for profit. Or they could demand sexual favors as you climb the ranks. Or they could just gang-rape you because that is what they feel like doing. Do you know how at risk drug users are for such things? And you’d have no backup. No one to protect you.”

She wrenched away from him, shoving at his chest to put distance between them. “I am well aware of what could happen, Rafe. I can accept it,” she said, though there wasn’t a lot of conviction in her voice. “If that’s what I have to do then that’s what I have to do. But if I’m smart, if I play it right, I think I have an idea how I can make this work where I won’t be in danger. Not much in any event. Not from that.”

“What idea?” he asked with a dark frown.

“I’ll set up shop as a madam. I’ll run some girls in a reasonably nice place, provided you will fund it. Nice, clean girls. I’ll pick up some of the working girls I know from my vice days and give them nice rooms and a steady clientele to work with. I’ll definitely gain some attention if I am working a competitive gig. I might not even have to do drugs that way. I could say I run a clean shop. With clean girls and a clear head. Yes. This is a great idea!”

“Until they kill you for daring to compete in their marketplace. This idea sucks.”

“They won’t kill me; they’ll force me to give them a cut of my take. And then they’ll look on me as an equal—might even let me meet the boss myself, in order to do business. I’m much more likely to get close to him as a business partner than I am just being some junkie girl.”

“If you stay clean they’ll suspect you.”

“Not if I play the part right.”

“And you’ll just crop up overnight?”

“I can build up slowly over time. Start small so they don’t notice me at first. Then grow a little every day until they can’t ignore me any longer.”

“You know what I hate most about this idea?” he said, reaching for her again.

“What?” she asked, her body language stiff as he pulled her close.

“That you’ll be in danger. That I’ll have to keep away from you…and that it just might work.”

She smiled at that and relaxed against him. She stroked her hands up over his pecs, feeling the strength in him as the muscles twitched in response to her touch.

“I’m not going anywhere yet. If I’m going to work something on this big of a scale, I’m going to need a lot of planning and a lot of help. A lot of players. I’ll need to get vice on board. I’m not about to risk my entire career going rogue and getting caught doing something I could go to jail for. Not something this big that’ll draw attention from all corners. Let me talk to my captain. I can tell him it’s connected to a murder I’m working, the one I’m working with the vampire killer. I can have you send someone to the station as a CI who’ll tell them that the killer is part of Killean’s inner circle. That’ll motivate them to want to get someone in there. I’ll make sure that someone is me. I’ll have to go about it just right but I think I can pull it off.”

When she spoke she got an excited, almost glazed expression on her face. It was as if she were talking to herself. Part of him felt, rather petulantly, that he need not even be there.

“The thing is, something like this takes time,” he said. “What if Killean is planning something this weekend when all the delegates will be in town? We need someone in there fast and now.”

“That quickly? It can’t be done,” she said with a shake of her head. “Maybe if I’d had a week I could have done something in time, but no one can establish that kind of trust that quickly.”

“If it can’t be done then it can’t be done,” Rafe said, his relief hardly hidden. “There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Renee bit her lip and her eyes unfocused for a moment.

“What I need is an intro. From someone on the inside. Maybe if we make a few arrests I can get some leverage and get an intro. I still have some contacts through vice. I think I can figure out who to squeeze.”

“Renee, can we talk about this later?” he asked softly. “Right now I’m really tired and I want nothing more than to get you into my bed where I can make love to you properly. I’m not discounting our time in the elevator, but it wasn’t exactly up to my usual par.”

She smiled slyly at that and finally focused all of her attention on him as she sidled in close to him. “If that wasn’t up to par, then I’m dying to know what your usual game is like.”